Glossary

Authoring Tool

The Living Garden makes use a whole range of special purpose, simple to use authoring tools, available both publicly and privately. An authoring tool is used in association with a Key to create a message or Living Book. At its simplest level, the process could be thought of as being analogous to using a BT card in a public call box to `author' a telephone conversation. There are, as indicated below, important differences, however, in terms of the normal assumptions of who is an author, and what the authoring process represents in terms of `value'.

 

garden (sic) - see also Living Garden

The Living Garden is made up of a series of linked physical garden landscapes, all of which connect to a central multimedia database where Living Books are stored (see figures). These gardens are active environments which can `sense' the presence of an individual carrying a Key. A garden provides an interface for the contents of a Living Book.

 

Key

The Key is the device which is used to create, protect and pass on messages or Living Books. These Living Books are actually stored on a highly distributed multimedia database, similar to the Internet, rather than on the Key itself. In essence the Key is not dissimilar to a banking card. Unlike a cash card, however, the Key can be any shape or size, and it may also be hidden or disguised in other physical objects. Each Living Book is represented by a separate Key.The Key provides an instrument via which messages can be `transmitted', in the sense that whoever possesses a Key retains ultimate control and access over the recall of a message. Keys may be used within any garden that forms part of the scheme, and provide a transparent means to retrieve messages within gardens and guide the Key holder to the appropriate Viewer(s).

 

Living Books

A Living Book is simply a message. Living Books are created via a range of special purpose authoring tools - both private and public - all free at the point of use. Living Books may - on the one hand - be brief, discrete messages made up of either a sound recording, a picture, or a scent. At the other end of the spectrum they may be made of a combination of all these elements woven together in a sophisticated way. Living Books are controlled by a Key.

 

Living Garden - see also garden

The Living Garden is the name of the conceptual/architectural system which provides places, spaces and means for any individual to create and pass on certain types of personal message via the agency of an object called a Key. A Key holder can visit any garden where their message (indirectly encoded by the Key in their possession) is reproduced within that landscape by a Viewer. The garden itself may be anything from a small urban plot (not necessarily `green') to an apparently `natural' landscape in the middle of the countryside, spreading over tens of miles. Navigational issues are dealt with within the book of the Living Garden. Footage of the bug - one of the more esoteric navigational devices described - can be viewed here.

 

Memory Tax

A small tax levied on all advertising media (paid by the advertiser) which funds the Living Garden scheme.

 

Message - see Living Books

 

Viewers

Viewers are the devices within a garden which can reproduce all or part of a Living Book. Examples of some Viewers are:

 

 

  • the Censer - a device which could re-synthesis a scent recorded as a message within a Living Book
  • the Echoing Tree - a tree which reproduces sound messages through hidden speakers
  • the Pool of Reflection - a pool of water upon which still images, or sequences of still images, encoded in a Living Book may be reproduced (click here for video of pool).
  • the Time Sail - one of the few multi-media devices within a garden which can reproduce both images and sound at the same time